Dell Turns 30: This Is What A $3,000 PC Was Like Back In 1984

Saturday marks the 30th anniversary of Dell Computer. By any account, Michael Dell's life is an all-American success story.

In 1984, 19-year-old Michael Dell, a freshman at the University of Texas founded a computer business with $1,000. He called it PC's Limited. He had a game-changing idea to make computers low-cost, sell them through catalogs and (later) over the internet, and let people pick and choose the hardware they want.

Dell dropped out of college at the end of his freshman year to run his PC business full time. Today he's worth about $18 billion.

In 1984, if you wanted a decent PC you were prepared to pay $3,000. IBM tried to launch a less expensive one, the PCjr, that cost $1,269, but the price didn't include a monitor and it had other problems. It didn't sell well.